


Unwoven

by Guanin



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-05
Updated: 2012-04-05
Packaged: 2017-11-03 01:59:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/375840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Guanin/pseuds/Guanin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Azazel sleeps with Raven, and everything falls apart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unwoven

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. I decided to make Janos Puerto Rican, basically because I wanted to make my life easier. I'm Puerto Rican and it's the only place about which I know anything of what was going on in the 50's and 60's save the US. So...
> 
> 2\. I debated whether to translate all the foreign insults in the text, but I decided that Janos really needed to curse as he wished, and you will soon see why. To clarify: 'hijo de perra' = 'son of a bitch' and 'puta madre' = in this context is sort of an equivalent of 'fuck'.

“Don’t speak to me, _hijo de perra._ How could you do this to me?”

“Janos, I’m sorry! Can you please listen to me?”

Janos replied by throwing a tornado at Azazel, smacking him against the wall. 

°°°°°°°

_“Did you notice Raven has disappeared?” Janos asked one morning as he and Azazel had breakfast in the kitchen._

_“Yeah…um,” Azazel muttered, not lifting his eyes from the newspaper he was reading. “I heard she went on a trip.”_

_“Heard she was pregnant, too.”_

_Janos nibbled on a piece of toast. Crumbs fell across his chest. Frowning, he swept them off as he leaned forward, grabbing his own newspaper, Le Monde. His French could use some brushing up. It’d been ages._

_“Maybe she went to get rid of it,” he said._

_He didn’t notice how Azazel’s tail stiffened. Not then._

_“Maybe.” Azazel’s reply was so light that Janos barely heard it._

°°°°°°

“It was a mistake,” Azazel said.

“ _Puta madre_. That’s your excuse? Do you even care enough to try? Stay away from me!”

The house shook with the force of the tornado encased inside it. Books and chairs smashed against the walls and ceiling, and a lamp broke on Azazel’s shoulder, sending him to the ground. He teleported around the room to avoid the projectiles, each time striving to appear close to Janos, but Janos wouldn’t let him. He threw the tornado at him, wishing that every time Azazel vanished, it would be the last. 

°°°°°°°

_“Why are we here?” Janos asked, squinting against the bright tropical sun that gleamed down on the stretch of white beach. His feet sank into the soft sand, his leather shoes suddenly superfluous and confining. The breeze flapped his shirt, the humidity making the fabric uncomfortable on his skin. There wasn’t another human being as far as Janos could see, nor any hint of civilization. Not a tourist beach or a private beach. Azazel was so good at finding secluded spots like this._

“You’ve been too stressed,” Azazel said, his shirt already off. He lost no time getting rid of the rest. “I’m treating you.”

Janos grinned, rushing to remove his clothes as well. So overrated, really. God, but Azazel looked gorgeous in this light, not that he looked bad in any light. Delicious red skin shone as he stretched out his naked body, taut muscles detailed by the sun. The wind defied the product in his hair and shook a strand loose. It brushed into his eyes, which glittered as he delighted himself watching Janos slip out of his clothes. 

“You’re treating yourself,” Janos said, lust building inside him with the heat of Azazel’s regard.

Azazel reached for him, and in a moment they were chest deep in the water. 

“Damn, this is cold!” Janos cried out, laughing as he spit out the water that splashed into his mouth from the teleportation displacement.

“You should be used to it, Caribbean boy.” 

Azazel tugged him by the waist and kissed him. Soon, the water warmed up just fine. __

°°°°°

“What bullshit are you going to say? You were drunk? She seduced you? You had a moment of weakness? You don’t have moments of weakness.”

“I did this time. Janos, I know there’s nothing I can say that can make this better, but please believe me. I’ve never regretted anything so much in my life. I’ll never—“

“Do it again?” Janos scoffed, swallowing against the knot in his throat. “That’s what all cheaters say. Just like my father. Well, I’m not going to turn into my mother and forgive you.”

°°°°°°°°°

_Two weeks after Raven left, Emma pulled Janos into the study._

_“There’s something you need to know,” she said, guiding him towards a chair._

_“What? Why do you look so serious?”_

_“You should sit.”_

_Emma’s face was filled with so much concern for him that he felt as if a thunderstorm had dumped all its rain on him. He sank into the chair, limbs suddenly heavy and stiff. Fear nibbled at his stomach._

_“Do you know where Azazel went two days ago?”_

_She really didn’t need to ask, telepath that she was. However, she promised those who joined the Hellfire Club, and now this new Brotherhood, that, for the sake of privacy, she wouldn’t read their minds unless she felt she must for safety reasons. Janos didn’t completely believe her, but she did stay out of their private business. Usually._

_“He said--” Janos said, his tongue stuttering. Cold realization chilled his spine. “He lied.”_

_Lied with his head stuck in the closet, smoothing out clothes that had already been folded, jabbering about needing to de-stress somewhere new, then ducked out of the room and Janos’s sight for a midnight meal without even asking Janos if he wanted something._

_“Where did he go?” Janos asked, dread sharpening his voice._

_“Nova Scotia.”_

_Quite a ways from New Zealand, Azazel’s supposed destination._

_“What’s in Nova Scotia?”_

_“Raven.”_

_Emma could transfer memories into your mind, including sight, sound, and even emotion. This is how Janos saw Azazel appear in some apartment Raven had holed up in to ask her about the baby. She sat at the kitchen table drinking a cup of tea. Always tea. Must have been Xavier’s Englishness that rubbed off on her. Dirty plates and cups were piled in the sink. A half eaten piece of toast lied on a plate on the counter, crumbs streaming off across the tiled surface. The hair at the top of Raven’s head stuck out at an odd angle, as if she’d been pulling it. She smoothed it out with a swipe of her hand when Azazel entered, but did nothing else._

_“You can’t get rid of it,” Azazel said without preamble._

_The look Raven flashed at him was so tired and enervated that Azazel mentally flinched, but he didn’t back down._

_“I can if I want to,” Raven said. Grabbing her mug, she strode across the room to put it in the sink, turning her back to Azazel. It clinked into the pile._

_“It’s my child, too,” Azazel said. “You can’t just decide this on your own.”_

_“This,” Raven pointed at her belly, which was already rounding out, “wasn’t supposed to happen. I don’t want children, Azazel. Don’t tell me you do.”_

_“Not before, but…” Azazel crossed his arms, squaring his shoulders. “It exists now.”_

_“It’s not even a fetus yet. Besides, I don’t want it.”_

_“I do. So you need to have it.”_

_“Easy for you to say. You’re not the one throwing up every morning, whose feet are swollen, who has the sudden urge to eat mustard mixed with chocolate ice cream. You’re not the one who’s going to suffer the pain of nine hells to birth it. And I’m not raising this. It’s not like we can give it up for adoption. You know it’s likely going to look like us. Genetics still apply to mutants, remember? And it might not be able to shape shift like me. You really want to have a kid who’s going to suffer the way you did? I never looked this way as a kid for a reason.”_

_Azazel hunched his shoulders, fear and hope warring in his heart, but in the end, he couldn’t deny what his soul was screaming at him._

_“I survived,” he said. “This child will, too. I won’t abandon it like my parents did me.”_

_Raven rolled her eyes at the implication of herself._

_“Spare me the lecture. It’s the 20th century. Not all women are crazy to be mothers. You want to raise it? Fine. But how? In the Brotherhood? And what are you going to tell Janos? That you developed a new ability to reproduce asexually? He’s going to dump your ass. You really want to risk that for the sake of something that isn’t even a proper baby yet?”_

_“I’ll come up with something.”_

_Raven sighed, a breath as deep as the counter she leaned against._

_“Azazel—“_

_“Raven, please. I want this child.”_

_Raven stared at Azazel, hard. She sucked in her lower lip, her jaw hardening._

_“Fine,” she said after a long while. “But as soon as it comes out of me, it’s your responsibility. Don’t be coming to me to mother it for you.”_

°°°°°°

“You’ll come up with something?” Janos shouted, glaring at Azazel, who cowered on the floor at his feet where the latest blast of wind had thrown him. “What were you going to come up with? That in a fit of deviousness you donated your sperm to a fertility clinic? That you found an abandoned child and wanted to raise it, and what a coincidence that his mutation is so like yours and Raven’s? You piece of shit.”

Someone knocked at the door, trying to open it. Janos sent the tornado at it to keep it shut, but it ripped off its hinges from the outside. Erik strode inside, or tried to, for the wind buffeted him back, practically tossing him out of the room. He only managed to stay upright by magnetizing himself to what was left of the hinges sticking to the wooden door frame. 

“Janos!” he shouted to be heard above the wind. “Turn off that tornado! You’re shaking the whole house!”

Janos ground his teeth. He glared at Azazel, who continued to regard him with sickening, pleading eyes, but he did as he was told, cutting off the tornado by fisting his hand. The vortex faded, letting lamps and papers and pens crash down to the floor in a loud muddle. Pity none of them hit Azazel on the head. 

“What the hell is going on here?” Erik asked, peering at Janos and Azazel, who got to his feet, careful to keep his distance from Janos, finally showing some common sense, though he clearly wanted to come closer, the bastard. 

“Did Raven tell you about Azazel?” Janos asked Erik.

“Tell me what about Azazel?” Erik placed his hands on his hips, scowling as he surveyed the damage in the room. “What are you two fighting about? A little longer with that tornado and the roof would have popped off the house.”

He didn’t know. At least Erik hadn’t been lying to him, too. 

“That baby Raven is carrying,” Jonas said. “Azazel put it there.”

“What?” Erik gaped at Azazel. “You did what?”

“It’s none of your business, Erik.” Azazel’s tail twitched like it always did when things didn’t go his way. As if he had any right. 

“It is my business when you two nearly tear the house down and I lose one of my team for eight months. And she’s having a child.”

“You’re losing me, too,” Janos said. “And not just for eight months.”

“Janos, you can’t—“ Erik said.

“Janos, please,” Azazel said simultaneously. 

“I can’t stay here with them,” Janos said, raising his voice to barrel over their protests. “Not with him. Not with her. Not with their damn child. I can’t. I’m sorry, Erik. I really am. But I can’t look at them anymore.”

°°°°°°°°

When she heard, Angel insisted on taking Janos on an all night bender, and, as drowning himself in alcohol was the only thing he wanted to do right now, he said, ‘Why not?’ and proceeded to get more wasted than he had ever been in his life. But the drinking didn’t work as he’d wished it would. Instead of numbing his pain, it enhanced it, stretching it out in a nauseating lethargy aching in his throat and prickling at his eyes as he poured out into the cold countertop of the bar every single thing that bugged him about Azazel, from how he constantly forgot to brush his teeth before going to bed to what a two-timing asshole he was. 

“I should have known this was going to happen,” Janos moaned, downing another shot of rum, then grimacing as the quick influx of alcohol numbed his brain. “He was always staring at her. Always talking and getting all close, but why wouldn’t he? She’s the first person he’s met who’s physically different in their whole body. Why shouldn’t they be friends? But he couldn’t just stay friends, could he? He actually fucked her. I can’t…” His throat squeezed shut. “We’ve been so good together.”

He gazed up at Angel with blearing eyes. She rubbed his back, sadness and sympathy mixing on her face. 

“Four years,” Janos said. “Is that too long? Did he get bored? Am I too normal-looking for him? A man like him. I didn’t think it would last at first. You know, when we first joined up with Shaw, I kept hoping that Shaw didn’t have any gay leanings. Sure, tornadoes are great, but what’s that compared to absorbing a whole bomb? Not that Azazel is that fickle, but we hadn’t been together that long. Sometimes, I thought he only stuck around for the sex and the company.”

“He’s an asshole, Janos,” Angel said. “He doesn’t deserve you.”

“But he’s not normally an asshole. Oh, what am I saying? He’s an asshole. _Un hijo de puta. Cabron_. Wanker. _Mudak. Salopard. Connard. Canto de mierda._ ”

Janos continued until he exhausted every insult he could think of in every language he knew, and even in some he didn’t. Angel only understood half of them, but she chuckled and added some of her own. 

“Just like my ex Jimmy,” she said, leaning back on her stool as she nursed her margarita. “We were together three years, then I found out he’d been cheating on me since at least the second year with some slut who lived across town.”

“Raven’s a slut,” Janos said, tossing back a fresh shot of rum. At least the burn down his throat numbed the pain for a bit. “A big, vomit-looking slut. I don’t care that vomit isn’t blue, she still is.”

Angel belted a full throated laugh this time.

“Honey, I heard that she and Hank McCoy had been all over each other the entire time they were training. Then, the night before the attack, she jumped into Erik’s bed, naked. Major slut with all capital letters.”

Angel had to drag him back to his hotel when the bar kicked them out at four in the morning. They insisted that they must close and no, he couldn’t have one for the road. Janos was barely conscious by that point. His head lolled on her shoulder, the ground rolling like a fishing boat in the midst of a nor’easter as he gaped at the street lights, fluorescent haze blurring his sight to a numb blue.

He spent most of the week this way, unwilling to face the world otherwise. Consciousness hurt. Waking up in an empty bed that didn’t smell of Azazel hurt. Imagining Azazel with that whore, kissing her, taking her... That ripped a hole inside him so deep that four bullet shots to the stomach would feel like a scratch. And the real Azazel wouldn’t leave him alone, either. He left piteous notes, sent bouquets of flowers as big as a table, appeared in random alleys while Janos walked down the street, and even popped into his hotel room once, insisting that he loved him. Janos punched Azazel in the face, burned the notes, and tore the petals from their stalks, not caring how he cut himself on the thorns or how his blood speckled his favorite lavender shirt. Azazel had given him that shirt last Christmas. Janos burned it, too. 

He booked a flight to Madrid and spent the next few months wandering around Europe, scarcely noticing the splendor of the architecture or the gorgeous landscapes. He barely noticed anything at all. He swore he felt Azazel staring at him sometimes, but if the bastard was around, he’d grown a brain, for Janos never saw him. 

Three months in, while loitering about the cobbled streets of Bruges, Janos ran across a man who lit his cigarette with his bare fingers. Hazel-nut hair, slim build, shy smile. He was nothing like Azazel. When he noticed Janos, he stuffed the hand that lit the cigarette in his jacket pocket, his back stiff and shoulders hunched, worried that Janos might have seen his little trick. 

“Bonjour,” Janos said, strolling closer to the edge of the stone bridge the man was leaning against. Behind him stretched the curve of the river that surrounded the medieval city. It curled around the old houses in a loop peppered with floating water fowl. One of the ducks squawked and flew up to perch on the railing beside them. It was scarcely 7am, too early for the flock of tourists or most of the locals to be about, so they were alone in the quiet street. The man returned his greeting with a polite smile, eyes flicking to Janos’s for a moment before looking away. He sucked anxiously at his cigarette. 

“It’s hot, isn’t it?” Janos continued in French, hoping his shoddy grasp of the language wasn’t too horrible. 

“Yes,” the man said. “The last week has been unbearable.”

It really was most brutally hot. The man’s collar stuck to his neck, his skin shining with tiny beads of sweat in the clear morning sun. 

“If you’ll allow me, I could lighten the temperature for you.”

Janos raised a small tornado in his right hand and lifted it close to the man’s face. The man jerked back, gawking at it with startled eyes, and took his hand out of his pocket, ready to strike if necessary, but Janos only smiled, holding the tornado close enough to produce a soothing breeze. Soon the man lowered his hand, his stance relaxing. He grinned back. 

°°°°°°°°°

Janos felt Azazel the next morning when he opened his eyes. The man he met the day before lied behind him on the bed, his arm thrown over his torso, forehead pressed between Janos’s shoulder blades. Janos glanced at the window. A man’s shape hovered behind the curtains for a second, then a haze of red smoke wafted in the breeze. 

It was the last Janos saw of Azazel for four years. 

°°°°°°°

Erik called with a job, a job only Janos could accomplish with his destructive powers, so could he please do it, just this once?

“I haven’t bothered you with anything for four years,” Erik said. “Azazel won’t be around, I promise.”

I promise. A phrase that never meant anything other than ‘I promise I’ll do my best you never find out’. Had Erik promised never to leave Charles, Janos wondered, only to leave him bleeding and crippled on the sand? But he shouldn’t take it out on Erik. He had agreed to let Janos go without bloodshed after the breakup (not that he had a choice), and he truly hadn’t asked him to go on any missions since. 

Six days later, Janos rethought his decision. He should definitely take it out on Erik. It turned out that, not only did Erik want an air force base destroyed, courtesy of Janos, he also wanted a few choice items inside it, which he sent Azazel to fetch for him beforehand. And not even that much beforehand, for as soon as Janos’s massive twin tornados finished decimating every last jet and building stretched over the plain, Azazel popped up a few yards away from him, gawking at Janos as if he were a god come to life. 

The tornados faltered as Janos staggered back, the screech of crashing wreckage forgotten as he looked around for Erik, the liar. 

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Janos asked. “Erik!”

“Janos.” 

Azazel approached him, but Janos rushed away toward Erik, who had turned towards them from where he stood some distance away, surveying the damage. When he saw Azazel, he grimaced, murmuring, “Ah, shit.”

“It’s been four years,” Azazel said, chasing Janos. “Can’t we just talk for a min--?” 

“No! Erik, you promised me he wouldn’t be here.”

“I ordered him not to,” Erik said, glaring at Azazel. “You were supposed to go straight to the house, not come here.”

“You thought you could hide that Janos was going to be here from me?”

Alright, maybe Janos shouldn’t mash Erik into pulp.

“Who told you?” Erik asked.

“Doesn’t matter. Janos, please. Just ten minutes.”

“Fuck off,” Janos said.

“Who told you?” Erik insisted.

“It was Raven, alright? Erik, could you please not—“

“Of course it was,” Janos said. “Bitch that she is.”

“Janos,” Erik said, disapproving. 

“Don’t expect me to be nice to her,” Janos said. “And when was this, during pillow talk? Oh, wouldn’t she love to gloat over my misery.”

“No!” Azazel said. “We’ve never had sex again. We barely talk to each other.”

“Oh, please.”

“That part is true,” Erik said. He jerked back when Janos glared at him, raising his hands defensively. “I’m not defending him.”

“Janos, please. Just twenty minutes. That’s all I ask of you. Please.”

“No.”

Azazel got down on his knees on the grass and Janos felt his throat close up.

“Please.”

God, just looking at him made his insides twist and his skin go shivery. He couldn’t be alone with him. He couldn’t. He couldn’t admit to himself that those fierce eyes turned to pleading still had such power over him. 

“No.” Janos shook his head, shutting his eyes as he stumbled back. “I can’t.”

“I’ll never ask you again.”

Liar. But Azazel teleported right at Janos’s feet, grabbing his right hand in both of his. His skin felt scalding warm. Janos couldn’t gasp enough air into his lungs to fuck off. Angel had told him that, for months after Janos left, Azazel suffered from nightmares so horrific that he woke up screaming and couldn’t manage to sleep for more than two hours straight. His days were nothing but jitters, stinging eyes and jaw breaking yawns. He grew so sleep deprived that he couldn’t teleport more than a few yards without falling to his knees, rendering him useless for any tasks that required teleportation. Janos felt a flash pride upon learning this, though he wondered if Emma was partly responsible. Her only reply when Janos asked was a sly smile and,

“No one treats you like that and gets away with it.”

Azazel should suffer for backstabbing Janos. He should rot in the mire he’d created until the mold ate at his bones.

But that was four years ago, four years of loneliness and stranger’s beds and wondering if perhaps this would be the man to finally extinguish Azazel from his soul, but the damn mutant was glued there like an anemone’s tentacles tearing at his heart, and it didn’t take anyone long to sense it. Azazel’s hair had started to go grey, streaks of white luminous in the nest of black. Frown lines marred his brow, and his eyes… Janos had never seen them so haggard.

Azazel didn’t risk another refusal and teleported them straight to a cozy living room Janos had never seen before. 

“Azazel, damn you!” Janos said, ripping his hand from Azazel’s grasp and backing away. “Where have you brought me?”

He crossed the living room, tripping over something on the floor, but he didn’t stop to see what it was as he ran through the kitchen, which was piled with a mass of dirty dishes and random cookie packets. He finally found the front door behind a bend next to a hallway closet and yanked at the door knob.

“It’s my house,” Azazel said. “Janos, please—“

God, he was getting sick of Azazel saying ‘Janos, please’. 

“Twenty minutes, I swear.”

The door wouldn’t open. Janos wrenched the knob the knob back and forth, but the damn thing wouldn’t budge. 

“Open this door,” Janos said. 

“Raven and I aren’t even friends anymore. I haven’t been in any relationships since you. I still love you.”

Janos froze, his head falling forward against the door. He wanted to smack it over and over until he drowned out Azazel’s pleading voice. He resolutely did not turn around to look at Azazel. He couldn’t trust himself. The last time Azazel said that to him, Janos punched him and ordered him out of his hotel room before he tore the place down with an F5 tornado. 

“Twenty minutes,” Janos said, shocked at how calm he managed to keep his voice. 

“Yes, I swear it.”

Janos shut his eyes. His fingers were numb from clutching the door knob. Better than the nausea building in his throat.

“Erik probably wants you to take him back to the house,” he said. 

“What?”

“You go, take Eric back to the house, then come back here and we can talk.”

It was transparent, really. Janos wanted time to smash his way out of the house without Azazel stopping him, and Azazel knew it. Janos didn’t hold any hope that Azazel would agree. There was no reason why he should. Yet, he did. Azazel dragged a sigh out of his lungs laden with more distress than he was warranted and said,

“Alright.”

As soon as he vanished, Janos ran around the house looking for another door, all the while tripping over things scattered on the floor. What the hell? Azazel may be a bit of a slob (number 2 on the list of top things to fight about, just under stealing the sheets), but he knew better than to throw things to the ground and leave them there. When a slip sent him crashing into a wall, Janos finally looked down. A teddy bear. Tonka trucks. Legos. Rails for a toy train. Children’s toys. Azazel’s house was littered with children’s toys. Of course. The child he had with Raven. Azazel had agreed to raise it. Now Janos really felt sick. The air thinned, the oxygen content decreasing by half in a second. Must get out. Where was the second door? He’d already circled the house, but found nothing. Every house had a second door. Why was there no second door?! 

A teleportation thump crackled behind him when he returned to the living room. Janos stiffened, panicking. Shit. It was too soon. Janos should have just broken a window or torn the whole house open with a tornado, but even he felt that last might be an overreaction. 

Wait.

The dust that floated over his shoulder…

It was blue. 

He turned to find, not Azazel, but a small boy. A blue boy with yellow eyes, pointy ears, and a tail. A prehensile tail. With a triangle at the tip. Oh God. Looking as startled as Janos felt, the boy teleported above Janos’s head, alighting on a rail set at the crook where two walls met. It ran horizontally across the whole wall, and even stretched beyond out of the room. It had probably been placed there to give this boy somewhere to perch. But his hands had only three fingers each, and his feet two wide toes. Nevertheless, he clung with skill, gawking down at Janos, eyes as wide as a cat’s. 

“Who are you?” he asked in perfect Spanish, albeit in choppy child speak. “What are you doing here?”

Spanish from Spain. Were they in Spain? When Janos didn’t answer, the boy asked again in Russian, which, Janos was horrified to notice, he remembered quite well. He hadn’t used it once since he left Azazel and had hoped to wipe it from his memory like every other reminder of Azazel’s existence, and yet, while he was rusty on the grammar and some vocabulary, plenty remained.

“I’m…” Janos started. What could he say? The truth was no good, not with a four year old. “Your father brought me.” Close enough.

“Wait,” the boy raised his head, a grin breaking out on his face. “I know you. You’re papa’s husband.”

||||

What?! 

“His what?” Janos squawked. 

“He’s got pictures of you.”

The boy vanished. Damnit! Where did he go? Janos felt like an idiot running through the house again, but if that boy was still here, he needed to find him and demand an explanation for such a ridiculous statement. What lies had Azazel been telling this kid? Janos was going to kill him.

“Where are you?” he shouted. 

“Papa’s room.”

Janos followed the little voice up the stairs. To the right, there was a bathroom. To the left, a shut door and an open door, the second of which led to a room with a tiny bed decorated with a green dragons coverlet. The first door, then (though Janos wouldn’t put it past Azazel to use dragon-themed sheets in secret with the obsession he had). Let’s hope this one wasn’t locked. He jiggled the doorknob. It was. 

“I can’t get in,” Janos said.

In an instant, the boy teleported next to him, took his hand, teleported them inside the room, then snuck off under the bed. Dizziness trickled in Janos’s head. He stared at the hand the boy had held, half-expecting some of the blue dust to cling to his skin. It was just like teleporting with Azazel. His father. 

He heard a faint teleporting thump from downstairs. Rapid footsteps stomped about the house as Azazel shouted Janos’s name. The boy emerged from under the bed, a triumphant grin on his face and a slim box in his hands, which he shoved into Janos’s numb ones. Azazel’s footsteps grew louder, but Janos scarcely heard them as he opened the lid and saw his own face grin up at him from an old photograph. 

The door opened and Janos jumped back, gaping at Azazel, who breathed out in relief, a grin brightening his face, at the boy who shouted, “Papa!” and teleported onto his back, hugging his neck, and at the photograph he held of him and Azazel modeling a pair of new suits they bought six years ago. 

“I feared you’d left,” Azazel said, genuinely happy to see Janos, then he turned to the little being attached to his back. “Juan, what are you doing here?” he asked in Russian. “I told you I was working today.”

Janos’s eyes grew so wide that his eyelids felt like they were receding into his head. No. Azazel didn’t-- He couldn’t—He shouldn’t— Not that name. He did not give that child Janos’s name. His legs gave way and he sank onto the bed, the box of pictures falling on his lap, and squeezed his eyes shut. Maybe some telepath was playing a really bizarre trick on him and none of this was real. 

“I had a bad dream,” the boy, Juan (Juan?!), said. 

“Why didn’t you go to Carmen?”

“She was sleeping. And I wanted to see you.”

Fingers trembling, Janos dug the pile of photographs out of the box. It was half an inch thick. Had he and Azazel taken so many pictures together? He’d only kept one and was embarrassed to admit it. He meant to burn it with the others, but it was the last one left and Azazel looked so ridiculous sunning himself on the deck of the yacht wearing white shorts, which he only wore because he lost their bet the night before by failing to keep silent during sex. He moaned so loudly that Emma and Shaw heard him in their cabin, to their amusement and Azazel’s chagrin. Janos stood beside him, arms stretched out toward him to showcase him like in one of those game shows while Azazel glared at him, his tail sneaking out to wrap around Janos’s knee. A moment after Emma took the picture, Janos wound up ass down on the deck while Azazel laughed. What followed was not fit to be photographed. Azazel had the same picture halfway down the stack. He must have asked Emma to make another copy. But he hated this picture. He declared the sight of himself in shorts to be an abomination. “I’d rather be naked,” he’d said. Janos certainly wouldn’t have protested that.

“Azazel,” Janos said, cursing how shell-shocked his voice sounded . 

“Yes?” 

Azazel turned around, his hand on his son’s shoulder. After he’d been so desperate to kidnap Janos and bring him here, he’d ignored his presence for the last few minutes to comfort his son. That was so selfless and heartwarming that Janos loved him more for it. At that thought, his heart did a weird swell and collapse thing in his chest and all blood seemed to leave his head. He gripped the photographs until the paper started to crinkle in his grasp. 

“I need to talk to you,” Janos said, almost laughing maniacally at the irony that now it was he who wanted to talk. “Alone. I’m sorry for interrupting you,” he added when he felt the boy’s yellow eyes on him. Raven’s eyes. Yet… not really hers. He looked like a gargoyle perched on Azazel’s back like that. A blue, fuzzy gargoyle with bright, curious eyes and a tail that flicked back and forth in wonder just like his father’s. Was this what Azazel had had been like at that age? 

“Yes, of course,” Azazel said. Triumph shone in his smile, and for a moment Janos wondered if Azazel hadn’t staged this all with his son’s help to overwhelm him. But the boy was only three and some months old, if Janos’s count was right. And he looked genuinely dejected when Azazel asked him if he could play in the living room for a bit while the grownups talked, his little face wrinkling in a pout, tail wrapping around his father’s arm, making Janos feel awkward and out of place in this family scene. Azazel really shouldn’t have brought him here. What the hell was the man thinking? 

Azazel finally won the day by succumbing to every parent’s final weapon.

“You can have strawberry ice cream from the fridge,” he said.

“Yay!” the boy squealed and ran out of the room, little feet stamping down the stairs. 

A daze enveloped Janos’s limbs as he struggled to stand, his legs barely holding him upright, but he wasn’t going to let Azazel tower over him, goddamit, not today.

“I’m sorry about that,” Azazel said, switching to English. “He’s not supposed to be here today. He appears and disappears when he likes. It drives us all crazy. He doesn’t know English, so don’t worry about him overhearing anything.” Azazel tried for levity in his tone, but the shakiness of his smile gave him away. 

“Azazel?”

“Yes?”

“Did you call him Juan?”

Azazel looked at his feet. He jammed his hands in his pockets, his tail flicking rapidly.

“I did.”

“Did you—“ _Keep calm, Janos, keep calm._ “Did you name him after me?”

Azazel hesitated for a moment.

“I couldn’t think of what else to call him.”

“Azazel, maybe? Peter. Kurt. Any other male name?”

“It was the only name I wanted to give him.”

Juan. _That_ was his only option. The Spanish for Janos, the name Janos insisted on calling himself when all the kids laughed in his face for having such a weird sounding name. What did they know about Hungarian ancestors and his father’s short-sighted wish to name him after one of them?

“You named her son after me?”

“He’s my son,” Azazel’s voice hardened. He crossed his arms, his back straightening in a stiff line “Raven doesn’t have anything to do with him, doesn’t even ask about him. That’s why I have a separate house, so they never risk seeing each other.”

“Doesn’t he ask why he doesn’t have a mother?”

Azazel sighed, his jaw tightening as he turned his head to the side. His tail swished faster now. 

“I told him she left,” he said. “I didn’t tell him the truth, obviously. It’s hard explaining these things to a three year old. It’s like you have to relearn how to form sentences. They can’t understand half of what you’re saying.”

“Is that why you called me your husband?”

Azazel’s eyes flashed up to meet Janos’s. Janos would hazard to say that he looked frightened.

“What?”

He noticed the pictures in Janos’s hands. 

“He gave you the pictures,” he murmured. “How the hell did he—I moved those. He wasn’t supposed to find them again.”

“When he saw me,” Janos said, “he said ‘You’re papa’s husband’. Why the hell would he call me your husband unless you said it?” 

Janos wished to go with s stronger word than ‘hell’, but, non-English speaking or not, Janos didn’t feel comfortable cursing with a child in the house, not that his parents had even had such a compunction. 

“Well,” Azazel said, “like I said, I can’t figure out how to explain things to this kid. He found those pictures and he wouldn’t stop asking questions about you. Who is he? What kind of friend? Is he why you named me Juan? You know how kids are. I can’t use the word ‘lover’ with a kid.”

“You could have said ‘boyfriend’.”

“Yes, I suppose I could have. I just got started with husbands and wives to use something he knows, but then I had to do some mental gymnastics since, obviously, you’re not a woman, but I explained that not all men end up with women and that sometimes two men get together like a husband and wife do and it was a runaway train by that point. It made sense to him that way. I didn’t plan this out. He just gets everywhere and he found those pictures and, well. They weren’t under the bed before. I moved then, yet he still finds them. And I didn’t want to lie to him, not about you.”

Janos gaped at Azazel, stunned. There wasn’t a hint of subterfuge in Azazel’s face or voice, just earnest hope that Janos wouldn’t reject him, that he realized the magnitude of what he’d thrown away by sleeping with Raven. Janos didn’t buy Azazel’s excuse. He hadn’t just stumbled upon the word ‘husband’. Was that what he considered Janos to be while they were together? Janos’s heart was doing flip flops in his chest, clapping like miniature cymbals on his eardrum. 

“Can you take me back home?” Janos asked. “I need to process this.”

“Sure,” Azazel said, probably sensing that it was wiser not to push him right now. “Where do you live?”

Janos snorted.

“I’m surprised you don’t know. You chased me around enough after I left you.”

“I’m sorry about that. But I haven’t in years. I knew I shouldn’t.”

 _Which is why you dragged me here without any means of escape_ , Janos thought, but while he would have spat that out ten minutes ago, now the words dried on his tongue. 

°°°°°°°°

Two piña coladas, two martini, five shots of rum, four pints of lager, a glass of brandy, and a sadistic hangover later, Janos called Emma. 

“I need you to get into Azazel’s head,” he said, swallowing against the swelling of nausea smothering his throat (yet he never threw up, it was so irritating). 

“Like a lie detector or do you want me to show you what’s in there?”

“Both. I really need to know what he’s thinking already. He’s driving me crazy. I think literally crazy. You heard about what happened, right?”

“He was projecting so much when he came back that I couldn’t help seeing it. How are you coping? You get good and drunk last night?”

A burgeoning headache lalalaed behind his eyelids, his blood vessels nearing their bursting point. 

“Oh yeah.”

“You want me to go where you are or are you coming here?”

“Is Raven there?”

“Won’t be back till Friday.”

“There might be better, then. And I don’t want to pay the hotel bill. I emptied the mini-bar.” He’d changed his mind about going home and opted for booking a room at the Caribe Hilton in San Juan and creating a massive bar tab. “Tell Azazel he can pick me up in, oh, six hours. I need a nap first. And some sanity.”

“Sanity isn’t worth much to anyone, honey.”

°°°°°°°

Maybe he should have put this off until the next day. Really, he could. But calling in sick due to hangover felt so cowardly. Half of this nausea probably wasn’t the hangover’s fault, either. That responsibility fell squarely on the shoulders of the man who sat across from him in the study. Erik and Angel had been warned off upon pain of mind wipes and acute unpleasantness. Knowing Emma and the frightening skills she had mastered, it could mean anything from a headache to the mind thinking it suffered from a 108° fever along with its debilitating symptoms. Erik protested that he was in charge here and she couldn’t threaten him like that, which only made her smile. Soon Erik was off with the sudden urge to go watch a really sappy movie. Angel knew better. She hugged Janos and wished him good luck, then left to go shopping. Luck. What a funny concept. Downright hysterical. If it applied right now, Lady Luck was laughing at him. 

Emma sat beside them, mediator and interpreter at once. She sent Janos comforting mental waves. However, though Janos appreciated the gesture, it didn’t do much to smooth his frazzled nerves. He wondered if she was sending Azazel anything. Maybe really nasty visions about what would happen if he hurt Janos again. It’s good to be friends with a telepath. 

Both were waiting for Janos to commence the interrogation. Not much sense calling it anything else. That’s precisely what it was, and it was reflected in the wariness on Azazel’s face. He’d submitted to the idea without complaint, which surprised Janos. Azazel never liked having telepaths fiddling in his head. Yet, it also awakened an annoying niggling wish Jonas shoved down his throat, unwilling to contemplate it. What good had hope ever done him in the end? 

“Have you had sex with Raven again?” he asked.

Precise. To the point. Janos wasn’t going to trust Azazel’s earlier answers just because. 

“No,” Azazel said.

Emma nodded at Janos. He was telling the truth. 

“Do you want to?”

“No.”

Azazel’s eyes fixed on his, wishing to transfer some hidden truth without Emma’s interference. 

“Does Raven really have no contact with your son?”

“She doesn’t even ask about him. Says it would be too awkward if she knew anything. He’s not her son. He’s just mine.”

 _Though I’d like you to raise him with me_ , Emma sent Janos, plucked straight from Azazel’s mind in a tone so hopeful and forlorn that Jason had to restrain himself from shifting in his chair. A shiver trickled up his spine and down to the pit of his stomach. His breath stilled when he imagined that child calling him “papi”. 

“You didn’t refer to me as your husband just because you were struggling with the term, did you?”

“No. It made the most sense to me. We were together for four years. We shared everything.”

 _You want to see when he told his son about you?_ Emma asked.

 _Yes_ , Janos replied. 

Emma took him back inside Azazel’s bedroom. Early evening sunlight streamed through the window onto the photographs, which lied strewn atop the green coverlet, tossed everywhere by a browsing Juan. Azazel was picking them up, regarding each with a wry smile as he stacked them back together, each a joyful memory now turned sour. Juan stood at the other side of the bed, eyes bright with wonder as he asked the next in already a long series of questions.

“But who is he, papa? Why do you have so many pictures of him?” 

Azazel shook his head. Once Juan got started with the questions, he never stopped. Azazel paused on a picture of Janos smiling at the camera, not doing anything special or anything, just… smiling from his seat in the control room. This was the only way Janos would smile at him anymore. 

“You know how Carmen and Antonio are with each other?” he asked, waiting for Juan to nod. “They’re married. Husband and wife. That’s how Janos and me were. Always together. Taking care of each other. Loving each other.” 

“So two dads instead of a dad and a mom?”

“Well, you weren’t around yet, so we weren’t dads, but yeah, kinda like that.”

“Why isn’t he here?”

“Because…” 

Azazel paused, stuck on the bluntness of the question. He sucked air deep into his lungs, searching for the right words to hide the catastrophic mistake he’d made without completely lying to the kid. 

“I made a mistake,” he continued. “I did something that hurt him very much and he didn’t want to be around me anymore.”

“Did you say you were sorry?”

“I did. Many times, but… he couldn’t forgive me for what I did. It was too horrible.”

“What’d you do?”

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you, Juancito. You wouldn’t understand.”

 _How can you understand that the same mistake that cost me Janos gained me you?_

“I wish he’d come back,” Juan said, picking up one of the pictures of Janos and holding it up to his face. “I’d like two dads.”  
°°°°°°°°

 _Janos? Are you alright?_ Emma mentally projected. 

He really needed to quit breaking down like this . Fleeing to the bathroom after saying no more than ‘I need a little more thinking time’, then running water over his head in the sink until he got some up his nose was really not the most dignified of reactions. Well, it could have been worse. He could have jumped in the shower fully clothed and drowned for a bit like he wanted to do, but he didn’t think Erik would appreciate Janos borrowing his clothes due to a fir of hysteria. 

_I’m fine_ , Janos projected. 

_You’re not._

_Does he love me?_

_Adores you. It’s like a romance novel in his head with all the fantasies he has of you two getting back together._

Janos heard the scrape of a chair outside the bathroom door as Emma sat down. 

_Will he cheat on me again?_

_He truly believes he won’t. That’s the best anyone can hope for. It doesn’t mean you have to go back to him._

_Can you tell me what I want? I don’t know anymore._

_Oh, please, Janos. Don’t chicken out on me. You want to stop rolling about from bed to bed because none of them is his._

_But what about the kid? I see him and I keep thinking of Raven._

_I’m not going to make up your mind for you. You need to do that yourself._

°°°°°°°°°°

“Alright,” Janos told Azazel upon returning to the study. “Here’s what we're going to do. We’re going to date. Like those young couples do. We’ll spend time together and I’ll see if I can handle being around you. Alright?”

Azazel nodded. 

“Yes. Sure. Of course.”

“Alright.” Janos nodded to himself, crossing his arms in what was really a semi-hug. “Right.”

°°°°°°°°°°

Dating turned out to be less awkward than Janos anticipated. Due to Azazel’s physical appearance, their options were limited. They were restrained to mostly solitary activities, like playing cards and bowling, which wouldn’t have been Janos’s preferred way of starting to get comfortable with Azazel again, but he didn’t want the rest of the team gawking at them either as he and Azazel struggled to engage in a civil conversation without Azazel insisting that he would never hurt Janos again or Janos freaking out about the fact that the man he did want to spend his life with, damn him, now came attached to a kid who looked like the bitch he cheated on Janos with. A kid who wanted a second dad. He’d even said he wanted Janos to be that second dad. What did Janos know about kids? He’d had two younger siblings back home, but he had been a kid himself when his parents took him and his older brothers and sister to San Juan, leaving the smaller ones with their grandparents in Utuado, because who could afford to feed six kids in a city that was bursting at the seams with slums when neither of his parents could find a proper job? Janos hadn’t even known how to talk to Juan when the kid smacked him upside the head with his presence. Why couldn’t Raven be raising him instead? 

But Azazel looked so happy when he spoke of his son. Tired, frustrated, flustered as he told another wild tale of childhood madness, but always with a joyful smile of wonderment at the end, and Janos remembered how desperate he had felt when he begged Raven not to abort. He wouldn’t deny Azazel this. Janos asked about Juan more than he meant to, startling himself. Due to his involvement with the Brotherhood, Azazel couldn’t keep an eye on Juan all the time, so he found, of all things, a circus for him to spend time in.

“Yeah, I know,” Azazel said, grimacing over his hand of cards. “But I turned out alright. Mostly. And they’re better than the people I grew up. Besides, where else can a kid like him be?”

Juan was in the particular care of a middle aged woman named Carmen and her husband Antonio. Carmen was telekinetic, so she could stop Juan from teleporting away without permission and getting himself into trouble, and Antonio could walk through any material as if it were naught but air, so Juan couldn’t get stuck anywhere he couldn’t get out of. His teleporting abilities were still developing and it would be a while before he achieved his father’s dexterity. Juan also got to spend time with other mutant children who lived at the circus and, once he was old enough, he could get schooling from someone who actually knew what they were doing, though Azazel was doing well at teaching him Russian. The circus was based off Seville, which explained why Juan spoke their version of Spanish, but Azazel said he taught him some Puerto Rican terms here and there. Fancy that. While Janos had been fervent in his attempts to forget Azazel, Azazel had engaged in just the opposite. Janos wondered if Azazel had chosen a circus in Spain out of necessity or because they spoke the same language as Janos, more or less (it had taken Janos quite a while to accustom himself to all the different terms the first times he went). But he didn’t ask. He mustn’t risk getting overwhelmed again. 

As the days passed, they grew more comfortable with each other. Azazel started teasing him with some of the old jokes and Janos played along, even initiating some of his own. They sat closer on the couch when they watched television. Once, Azazel reached out with his tail and brushed Janos’s ankle. Janos gasped. He didn’t pull away, forcing his eyes to remain open and fixed on the TV set even as phantom memories of Azazel’s past touches burst through his mind, and he wished his tail would slip under his pant leg and touch bare skin, but it was too soon. They’d hardy been at this for a week and a half. Janos didn’t trust him yet. He wasn’t sure he could trust him again, but he trusted himself less not to stop before he got hurt. Slowly, he eased his leg away from Azazel, glancing at him from the corner of his eye, yet he didn’t dare look him full in the face. 

“Not yet,” Janos said, shifting on the sofa.

Azazel let his tail drop. 

A few days later, they invited the others along to bowl in the single alley the team had built in the basement (Raven was conveniently dispatched on a mission that day). Emma kept smiling at Janos when Azazel wasn’t looking, stopping short of projecting ‘I told you so’, though she came close. Angel regarded Azazel with guarded eyes, but went along with it, saying, “Well, as long he behaves himself.” Erik scrutinized them both as if at any moment they would start fighting and rip the house to pieces. He did his best, though, teasing Janos when his ball kept curving too far to the left, asking Azazel how Juan was doing. 

“Well, if you can make it work, I’m happy for you,” Erik told Janos afterward. “Someone deserves to be happy around here.”

Janos caught the trace of bitterness in his eyes and thought of Erik’s own failed chance at happiness with the man who was now their enemy. Erik probably had no more hope of getting over Charles Xavier than Janos had of getting over Azazel. 

Three weeks into the dates, Azazel called to cancel. Juan had chicken pox and the poor, little guy was marooned in bed with a fever and uncontrollable itching. Azazel sounded harried and exhausted, his worry tightening his voice. Juan started crying for his dad and Azazel quickly apologized again, hanging up. Janos stood for a long while with the phone sticking to his hand from sweat until the damn thing started beeping at him, grumbling that the call was over and would he please hang up already?

Hysterical laughter bubbled in Janos’s throat. Azazel—Azazel of all people—was at this moment likely sopping up child vomit and putting cold compresses on his kid’s forehead while murmuring that it was going to be okay. Reading a children’s book would follow, no doubt. It was so ordinary. So domestic. He had never pictured Azazel doing such things. Yes, Janos had known these past weeks that Azazel was raising a child, but it didn’t ram home into Janos’s head until now whilst he sat on a leather sofa in an empty apartment wondering what he was still doing here. 

He shot up to his feet, yanked his jacket over his shoulders, and ran down to the drugstore. 

°°°°°°°°°

“Hello?”

“Hi. It’s Janos. I was wondering, I could come over and help you with Juan. I don’t really know about this, but I could at least watch him while you take a nap or something.”

There was a pause on the line. When Azazel finally spoke, amazement suffused his voice.

“You really want to help me with him? It’s not pleasant, you know.”

“I know. But he’s your kid. I got anti-itching cream and Tylenol. They say that’s good for chicken pox.”

“Yeah. Alright. That’d be great.”

°°°°°°°°

Janos had forgotten how miserable a little kid can be when he’s sick. The nausea, the crying, the throwing up, the need to have one’s parent always by their side. Juan barely noticed Janos’s presence at first. He was just another shadow in the room. His dad was the only one he paid heed to while he lied curled up on his bed, legs and tail tucked up to his chest, his face squished into the pillow, scratching and scratching no matter how many times Azazel told him to please stop that. The anti-itching cream helped some, but it proved right tricky to stick through the thick fur covering Juan’s body. It felt like short cat hair and just as tough to penetrate. One had to dig through the strands to see the pox marks, those inflamed red nubs that had caused Janos his own share of misery when he was seven. He’d never quit scratching, either, the sharp scraping of fingernails providing such a pleasant relief, if only for a few seconds. What did kids know of infections and burst sores and needing to run for the doctor in the middle of the night? Janos got off easy. His own pox never got infected, while his brother wound up with scars dotting his neck after spending two weeks moaning in bed instead of one. Remembering this made Janos spread the cream on Juan faster, coating it on his arms and torso while Azazel took his tail and legs . The damn pox had spread everywhere, giving the boy no chance of relief, and he squirmed under their grasp, moaning his misery with plaintive whimpers that made Janos’s heart constrict. His fever only worsened matters. The thermometer read 100°, then 103°. Azazel palpated his son’s forehead, grimacing at the heat burning under his fingers. But this was normal in fevers, Janos told Azazel. It would go down soon enough.

After the cream ordeal ended, Azazel read Juan a book about a pirate who couldn’t find his parrot, which the boy only half listened to, but it achieved its purpose, and soon Juan was slumbering for the first time in eighteen hours. Azazel and Janos slipped out of the bedroom, leaving the door halfway open so they could hear him if he called, and stumbled down to the living room. Azazel collapsed on the couch. His eyes closed as soon as he hit the cushions, all his limbs lying flat and limp in exhaustion.

“God, having a kid’s tiring,” he murmured. 

“He’ll be fine,” Janos said, plopping down next to him.

“I hope so.”

They rested in silence. Janos watched Azazel, who didn’t seem to be aware of his regard. His eyes were shut, a worried frown wrinkling his brow. Janos’s fingers twitched at his side, wanting to reach out and brush away his distress, telling him that Juan would to be alright. But he wished to do more than touch. Not for the first time, Janos stared at Azazel’s mouth and pictured himself kissing him again, tasting his teeth with his tongue, and sucking on his lower lip, one of the most delightful delicacies Janos had ever experienced.

But this was not the time for such things. Azazel’s sick son slept upstairs, and the father was hardly in better shape.

“You can sleep if you want,” Janos said. “You don’t have to stand on ceremony for me. You never did before,” he added in a light tone, remembering how often Azazel loved to nod off at random moments during the day, in the console room, on the deck of the boat, on a hammock slung between two palm trees in an uninhabited island somewhere in the tropics where no one could interrupt his cat nap. 

“Won’t you get bored without me?” Azazel asked, sliding his eyes open. 

“I’ll find something to do. Don’t worry about me.”

Azazel was too worn down to complain any further. 

“Alright, shoo,” he said, prodding Jonas off the couch so he could lie down. “Wake me if Juan calls for me.”

Jonas didn’t find that much to do, really. There were a few non-children’s books lying about, but he couldn’t concentrate on the words for more than a few sentences straight without his thoughts flying to the man sleeping on the couch or his offspring upstairs. Slapping shut the latest in a string of failed readings, he went outside. A cool breeze smacked him on the face as soon as he stepped out the door—the Irish temperature wasn’t kind in October—but he didn’t care. The house was set on the rising side of a slope about a quarter mile from the base, so a low valley stretched out below and beyond, ascending again in the distance to crest in the form of emerald mountains set against the sky, luminous despite the clouds it streaking in shades of grey. A slim stream meandered across the valley, the bubbling of running water rising up to Janos’s ears. Flowers danced in the wind, dotting the tall grass blue, pink, and yellow. Azazel had chosen the location for its cool climate and its isolation. Juan’s fur made heat tougher on him than on most people, so it was a refreshing change to come here after spending the day in southern Spain, especially in summer. And the valley was the ideal playground for a child. Plenty of space to run, some scattered trees to climb on, a river to splash in, as long as you didn’t mind rain pouring down on you at random times. But Janos was more than used to that. Puerto Rico was like that, only with much more sun and stifling humidity. It wouldn’t be so hard to call this place home.

A few hours later, Juan called out. Janos was on Azazel’s bed. He shouldn’t be, yet he hadn’t wanted to resist indulging himself by lying on the sheets Azazel slept in every night and relishing his scent on the pillow. The boy’s cry sent him bolting from the bed onto his feet, guilt cringing in his skin as he clutched his hair back and yanked his shirt smooth. Stumbling out into the corridor, he stepped into Juan’s room. The boy was squirming beneath his comforter, scratching again.

“Don’t do that,” Janos pleaded. “It will hurt worse.”

“But they itch,” Juan moaned. 

“I know, but you have to take care of yourself. We worry about you.” Janos paused, frowning at how natural it felt to say ‘we’. “I’ll go get your dad,” he added, seeking to put some distance between himself and the boy, but Juan wasn’t having it.

“Where have you been?” he asked.

Janos turned back toward the boy, who looked up at Janos with an odd resentment in his eyes.

“What?”

“Papa said he didn’t know if you’d come back. But I wanted you to. You should be with Papa. He misses you.”

The funny feeling in Janos’s stomach intensified.

“Um… I’m sorry about that,” Janos said. “I’ll see what I can do. I’m going to get your dad now.”

Janos felt a smile tug on his lips as he hurried down the stairs. Halfway down, he stopped. His grin widened. A tiny whirlwind grew on his palm, which he hovered down to prance atop Azazel’s left ear. The man jerked awake, bating at the side of his face as if a really vicious wasp had stung his him, then twisted around on the couch until he saw Janos laughing on the stairs.

“Why do you always do that?” Azazel asked, glaring at Janos as he pushed himself upright. 

“It’s hilarious,” Janos said, doubled over on the steps, clutching the railing for dear life. “C’mon,” he gasped out. “Your son wants you.”

°°°°°°°°°

The chicken pox took a week to run its course, a week filled with more crying and itching, stacks of storybook reading complete with funny voices (to Janos’s hilarity and Azazel’s embarrassment), more passing out on the couch, Janos struggling to cook something edible, the two of them playing cards while Juan batted at his dad’s tail like it was his personal toy, knocking their heads against the wall when Juan blurted streams of questions, all ending in ‘but why?’, and Janos entertaining Juan by running vortexes all over the room. The boy squealed over the tornadoes like they were the greatest thing he had ever seen. He ducked in and out of them, laughing when Janos made one crawl up his leg. He stuck his finger in it, testing its edges. He really was a sweet kid. He even curled his arm around his waist and tapped his fingers on his side when he was waiting for something, just like Azazel, who watched them both with a covert smile that made Janos both warm and anxious. 

When Juan finally recovered, Azazel returned him to the circus, which he’d been moaning for during the whole week. A house in the middle of nowhere with only two adults for company wasn’t the most engaging of locations for a three year old who’d just gotten over a nauseating fever to spend all his time in. Right afterwards, Azazel returned Janos to his apartment. It was funny. Azazel’s house was in Ireland while Janos’s apartment was in Nice, yet it felt colder here. 

Azazel started to release his hand. Janos clutched it and yanked him close, not daring to speak as he stared into Azazel’s eyes. So much hope shone in them. The unspoken question perched on his lips, taking the form of his name.

“Janos?”

“Oh, fuck it.” 

Janos grabbed Azazel and kissed him like those first times in Puerto Rico, rolling on the earth of whatever patch of land they’d managed to find shelter in, frenzied, uncertain, yet very sure about one thing: a desire that wouldn’t cease until they both came under the burning sun. They clutched at each other with every limb they possessed. Azazel’s tail gripped Janos’s back, tip sliding up his spine to caress his nape and tickle behind his ear. Both men’s arms wandered everywhere, groping backs, bottoms, chests, ripping at buttons, seeking more skin, more heat, now. They had been too long denied. Janos pressed his leg between Azazel’s thighs, rubbing their erections together in a heady dance that had him gasping as Azazel kissed his way down his neck, licking every new patch of skin uncovered as he yanked Jonas’s shirt open. Jonas stroked the base of Azazel’s tail, caressing it with soft, little brushes just like he liked it, and Azazel’s groaned into his chest, his breath cool on the saliva he’d streaked on Janos’s skin. He took one last swipe at Jonas’s nipple before sinking to his knees, pulling Jonas’s trousers open, and swallowed his erection deep into his mouth. Jonas’s head rolled back against the wall, smacking it with a thud, but he couldn’t feel pain right now. Azazel, Azazel, Azazel, he chanted in his head, his chest heaving with every breath Azazel sucked out of him with that delicious mouth. Sunlight flecked his eyelids red as he strained to hold himself upright, grasping at the walls with gummy fingers, but his legs turned to putty as Azazel tightened his lips, so warm and wet and soft, and now his hands were touching him too, one pushing Jonas into the wall so he wouldn’t fall, the other massaging his balls and rubbing his base, gripping with just the right amount of pressure as he licked up Jonas’s shaft, his pace slow, so damn slow, the tease, but so fucking good that Jonas was sure the neighbors would be able to hear the keens rising from his throat. 

But no. Wait. There was something else he… he wanted to… God, Azazel was melting him. 

He pushed at Azazel’s shoulders, trying to pry him off, but his arms were so numb and this felt so good that he couldn’t manage it. 

“Wait,” he moaned. “Azazel, wait!”

Somehow, he stiffened his arms and pushed Azazel away. 

“Not like that,” he said, meeting Azazel’s perplexed eyes. “Take your pants off.”

A shiver of anticipation crossed Azazel’s face, and he rushed to do so.

“My shirt as well?” he asked.

“Oh, yes.”

He should shrug off his shirt and jacket, too, Jonas thought, but only the wall held him up as his cock ached, protesting the disappearance of that wonderful mouth, but it was for a greater cause. Oh God, was it a great cause. Azazel stripped quickly, revealing a body as magnificent as the last time he’d seen it. A couple of new scars marked some muscles here and there, but Jonas rather liked them. They shone in the sun that streamed through the window behind them, glistening with a sheen of sweat that made Azazel’s red skin even more gorgeous to behold. But it wasn’t beholding he was most keen on right now. That would have to come later. Summoning strength into his legs, Jonas kissed Azazel again, maintaining enough concentration to push Azazel backwards until his thighs smacked the dinner table. Jonas sucked Azazel’s tongue in a slow, languid motion, taking his time, but soon, too soon, his body screamed for more, so he raised his head.

“Turn around,” he said. 

Azazel gripped Jonas closer to him for a second before obeying. Jonas pushed him face down against the table, stroking up and down Azazel’s back as he spread his thighs apart. Jonas leaned into him, pressing the full length of his body against him as he suckled the back of Azazel’s neck while rubbing the underside of Azazel’s balls with his thigh. Azazel groaned into the table, his hands scratching the smooth surface as his tail tightened around Jonas’s back, but it wasn’t time for this yet. Jonas needed to get something first. He bit Azazel’s shoulder where it met his neck, making Azazel’s hips buck against his erection, and Jonas squeezed his eyes shut before he almost lost it and rodgered Azazel right there. 

“Don’t move,” Janos said into Azazel’s ear and scrambled upright. 

In the old days, Azazel would be saying something right now, some taunt, some tease, but now he was silent, as if he was afraid that anything he said might rub Janos the wrong way and make him call the whole thing off. As if Jonas could. Every second he kept himself from fucking Azazel felt like madness. But he didn’t feel like letting Azazel know that. Not yet. 

Azazel didn’t move, not for the whole time that Janos rushed to his room, grabbed the tube of lube, and rushed back to the dining room. He remained splayed on the table, lovely backside in the air, legs even stretched further apart than before, begging Janos to take him and take him hard. He raised his head as Janos reached the bottom of the staircase and Janos stumbled, his hand nearly losing hold on the lube. There was much more than hunger in those eyes. 

Azazel’s hips rose to meet him as he slicked his entrance, fingers diving deeper than they needed to, taunting him with touches light enough to tantalize yet nowhere near enough to satisfy, and Azazel clutched the far edge of the table, breath rattling, his back and legs shivering. Janos could practically hear him barking at him to get a move on, yet Azazel continued keeping his tongue still. Janos liked it. It was such a heady feeling to see Azazel bending to his will, following every command without question, but he might like it even better if Azazel weren’t keeping quite so silent. 

“Beg me,” he said.

“What?” Azazel gasped, turning his head to look at Janos, desperation suffusing his face, but that wasn’t good enough. 

“Beg me,” Janos repeated, voice harder this time. 

Azazel dropped his head on the table with a thump.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Janos. Fuck me already.”

Janos removed his fingers and stepped back, leaving Azazel with no physical contact at all.

“You can do better than that.”

“Please, Janos. Fuck me. You’re killing me.”

“I don’t believe I am.”

“Janos, I want you to fuck me. I’ve wanted you to fuck me for the last four years. All I can think about is you. I’ve never been with anyone without thinking of you. Haven’t even done it with the lights on so I can’t see it’s not your face. Please, I want you. You’re the only one I want for the rest of my life. Can’t you see that?”

Azazel’s tail was clutching at him so hard it was starting to cut off his circulation. 

“Your tail’s hurting me,” Janos said, his voice soft.

Azazel’s tail unraveled in an instant, dropping down by his side. Janos touched Azazel’s back, rubbing down his spine to the base of his tail, which curled up to give Janos access.

“You didn’t have to remove it completely,” he said, positioning himself behind Azazel.

The tail returned, tentative, brushing over his body with the slightest, nervous touch, then gripped him again as Janos pushed inside him, a moaned Russian phrase Janos didn’t understand rasping from his throat. Janos had to force himself not to rush in all at once. He wanted to relish this, to take his time after so long, but like so many of life’s plans, this one promptly jumped out the window without so much as a note. Azazel’s hips pushed back, impaling himself on Janos, and Janos felt onto him. Azazel wanted to be fucked? Oh, he was gonna get fucked. Janos pulled back and thrust without mercy or gentleness, hitting fast and hard on that spot inside Azazel that made him keen so wonderfully, adjusting his angle to reach it better. Azazel’s breaths were nothing but a series of open-mouthed moans and Janos wasn’t much different. The combination of Azazel’s tight body, his sudden submissiveness, and the delightful sounds he was making made him dizzy with pleasure. Oh, how he’d missed this. Azazel’s tail clutched Janos as if his life depended on it. He clenched around Jonas’s cock, pushing himself into Jonas’s thrusts with such abandon, as if Jonas were his whole life. Jonas reached down to touch Azazel, but the table got in the way, and he couldn’t manage more than a few clumsy fumbles, yet Azazel came soon enough. Jonas felt a wave of satisfaction at that. Not much later, Janos came deep in Azazel’s body, gasping his name. 

He slid to the floor, or tried to, for Azazel’s tail tugged at him, but that wasn’t much of a problem, for the other man slid right along with him. They collapsed on their backs on the tiled floor, which felt far too chilly, but neither could be bothered to move. Janos’s eyes slid shut. Azazel’s tail was wedged under him, digging into his back, but he didn’t mind. 

“Does this mean you’re taking me back?” Azazel asked after they recovered their breath.

Jonas chuckled at how insecure Azazel sounded even after what they just did.

“Yes, it does.”

°°°°°°°°  
Epilogue

_Eight months later_

Juan vanished in a puff of blue smoke, reappearing a second later on a second pole, from which he jumped to a trapeze set a foot higher than Janos’s head. He watched the little, aspiring circus performer hop and twirl about on a makeshift semi-jungle gym set up on the field outside Barcelona where the circus was setting up their headquarters for the next months. The long grass under his feet shone yellow-green in the clear morning sun, which made Jonas squint a bit, but he didn’t miss a second of Juan’s performance. Workers and performers strolled by, stopping for a moment to watch Juan before moving on, an amused smile on their faces. The boy truly was adorable, even if his act felt like a crayon doodle where what you thought was a dog turns out to be a cow. Juan ended it by hanging by his tail at the center, not the most engaging climax, but he was only four. He would get the hang of it. It wasn’t a parent’s job to criticize, but rather to heap praises as if your child’s every endeavor were the most amazing thing ever. 

“What do you think?” Juan asked, swinging about on his tail.

“Fantastic,” Jonas said. “You’re going to be a great performer one day.”

“As good as papa?” Juan asked.

“Better. You can beat him any day.”

Squealing with joy, Juan jumped into Jonas’s arms, making him struggle to stay upright as he stumbled back. Why did kids always launch themselves at you like that?

“Where’s papa?” Juan asked. “I wanna show him.”

“He should be here soon. He had some stuff to take care of. Work stuff. Very dull. You wouldn’t like it.”

“Like the stuff you do, papi?”

Janos smiled at the appellation. It still awed him to hear it.

“Yes, like the stuff I do.”

A funny feeling niggled at the back of his neck. Someone was watching them. He looked around, sight landing on a woman some distance away who started walking away as soon as he saw her. 

“Juan,” Jonas said, putting him down. “Why don’t you go play with Nana for a bit?” he asked, referring to the huge dog the other circus kids were cavorting with nearby.

“Okay.”

He watched Juan join up with the kids, then ran off after the woman. He knew who that was. What the hell was she doing here? She tried to eschew him by weaving through the mass of tents standing on the east side of the camp, but Janos wasn’t having it. 

“Raven!” he called out when they reached a narrow tent-made corridor.

She stopped. A loose strip of canvas flapped against her right leg for the longest time, but she didn’t seem to notice, her shoulders hunched, head down. She straightened her back when she finally turned around as if summoning her courage. _Sus cojones_ , more like. She had plenty of them to be showing up like this dressed up like a middle aged woman who could have come from anywhere in the Iberian Peninsula, the better to fit in with the crowd, as if Janos didn’t have any brains to see different.

“I’m not here to see him,” she said.

“Then why the hell are you here?”

“Erik sent me on a job nearby and I saw that the circus was out here and I just… I don’t know. I guess I finally got curious. Everyone’s always on tip toes around me about this kid.”

Most parents bragged about their child to co-workers every chance they got, recounting cute yet endlessly repetitious anecdotes, shoving stacks upon stacks of pictures upon their victims until their fake smiles begged, ‘please, no more!’ and then kept going anyway. Now, Azazel and Janos did do plenty of that when Raven was out of town, even though Jonas felt like he was in a Twilight Zone episode, for he would have never, ever imagined himself doing that just eight months ago, yet now he had the oddest compulsion to show off what had become his kid. But never when Raven was around. Never when she could overhear. Every time the three were forced to be in the same room for some mission meeting, Janos wrapped himself around Azazel to show her Azazel was his, never hers, never again, yet he still felt the sting of betrayal prickling under his skin even as Azazel slid his tail around his waist, kissing him behind the ear to reassure him, but Janos never let her see his reserve. Instead, he kissed Azazel senseless until Erik rolled his eyes and ordered them to stop that so they could please get on with the meeting. 

But there one was irrevocable proof that that night did happen. That child who he could see playing with the dog down by the big top, the one who smiled at him with Raven’s yellow eyes, who called him ‘papi’ with Raven’s blue lips. 

“It’s not like you ask about him,” Janos said, tearing his gaze away from Juan. 

“Would you really rather I did?” 

Fuck no.

“No.”

“Look, Janos, I don’t really know what I’m doing here. I just think of him as Azazel’s kid. And now he’s your kid, too. All I did was give birth to him, that’s it.”

“You sure?” Janos’s voice felt achingly tight. “You got curious today. What if you get curious later?”

“I won’t. He’s not my kid, Janos, not since Azazel first picked him up in the delivery room. He’s yours.”

She looked over his shoulder.

“Azazel’s here,” she said.

Janos turned around. Indeed, Azazel had popped up near the jungle gym and was walking over to Juan. He didn’t need to turn back to know that Raven had taken advantage of Janos’s distraction to slip away, but he did anyway, regarding the spot she’d stood on with a twist in his stomach. 

“Did he tell you about his act?” Janos asked Azazel once he caught up with him. Azazel’s ‘hello’ kiss lingered on his lips, short yet always welcome. 

“He insists he must show it to me,” Azazel said. “But after playing with the dog.”

“Can’t compete with a dog.”

They watched Juan and his friends roll around on the grass with Nana, a 250 pound Saint Bernard that dwarfed them all in size. Nana pushed Juan down on the ground and licked all over his face while he giggled, gripping at Nana’s fur.

“Alright,” Azazel said, rescuing Juan from the over-affectionate dog. “That’s enough rough housing.”

“Papa, can I get a dog?” Juan asked once Azazel had pulled him out of Nana’s affectionate clutches. 

“You have a dog right here.”

“But I want my dog.”

Janos told himself that it wasn’t insecurity over Raven’s presence that made him say it.

“Of course you can have your own dog.”

“What?” Azazel frowned at him

“I can?” Juan jumped in excitement. 

“Why not?” Jonas said. 

“Yay!” Juan shouted, hopping about. “I’m going to get a dog!” 

He ran over to tell his friends, proclaiming it to all and sundry despite Azazel’s protests.

“Juan,” he said. “We haven’t decided that yet!” He turned to Janos, looking quite vexed at Janos’s impracticality. “How are we going to keep a dog?”

“Juan can bring it here when we’re not home.”

“He’s four. He can’t take care of a dog by himself.”

“There’s plenty of other people around. And it can play with Nana. Besides, his birthday’s in a month. We should get him something special.”

“Something non-living would be easier.”

“Look, he’s already excited about the dog. You tell no, he’s going to cry.” Janos placed his hands on Azazel’s hips, sidling up to him. “You don’t want to see our son cry, do you?”

Azazel wasn’t having it. 

“You’re a devious man, Janos Quested,” he said, narrowing his eyes.

“You begged for me to take you back, so it’s your own fault.”

Azazel shook his head. 

“I guess it is. Fine, get him a dog. But you’re cleaning up its shit when the inevitable happens.”

Janos grinned, already imagining ways to coerce Azazel to do it for him. The man owed him.

“Of course.”


End file.
